Enhanced vocoders such as, for example, the AMBE vocoder have recently been introduced within Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN) systems for interconnect services. The bandwidth requirement of the AMBE vocoder is roughly half of the bandwidth requirement of earlier vocoders such as the VSELP transcoder. The lowered bandwidth requirement of these enhanced vocoders permits employment of a 6:1 interleave channel rather than the current 3:1 interleave channel, thereby doubling the channel efficiency and realizing RF capacity savings. However, employment of the 6:1 interleave channel provides higher audio delay that results in lower perceived audio quality than that provided by the 3:1 interleave channel.